Ruth would not have deigned to respond to such an insulting assault as that if I had made it, but to Will she replied, "You're mistaken there. I've thought and read on this subject. I'm not so young as you think." She walked over to the mantel and leaned her back against the white marble, then folding her arms across her chest, like a judging goddess, she continued: "I believe, and several people of reputation agree with me, that the most important thing to consult in considering marriage is one's temperament. Ask yourself what your tastes are and then see if the new life will gratify them. Temperament never changes. If you love music when you are twenty, you will love it when you are forty. Well, I have studied my nature very closely. I know what pleases it. I know what annoys and disturbs it. I'm different from the others in our family. I often wonder from whom I inherit my peculiarities. I love beautiful music, beautiful pictures, soft rugs, fine furniture, delicate lace at the windows. Low, artistic lamp-light, the comings and goings of soft-footed unobtrusive servants, a dinner perfectly served, exquisite china, old silver, exclusive people—all such things give me actual physical pleasure. I enjoy position and influence. My nature grows and expands under recognition. It dries up and dies under slight and disregard. The people I envy most in the world are those who are born in high positions. I can't alter my birth, but I have been invited to become a member of a prominent and influential family, and as one of that family I shall be invited and received everywhere, without any of the humiliating striving. I'm proud, you know. I despise toadying. I don't want to work for social position. I want it placed upon me, like a king his crown. Why, Will, Breck Sewall can supply my nature with everything it demands. Why shouldn't I marry him?"
"Can Breck supply your intellect with what it demands?" asked Will.
Ruth laughed good-naturedly.
"Poor Breck! Poor old maligned Breck! He isn't exactly intellectual, I agree, but don't you worry, Will, I shall find congenial minds enough in his circle. The Sewalls entertain all sorts of interesting professional people—the top-notchers, I mean. My intellect won't suffer. Where is the woman, anyhow, who discusses her soul with her husband? How can a woman read poetry with a man who has just been grumbling at the price of her prettiest gown?" Ruth shuddered. "No, no! Please! I prefer not. But I shan't be lonely. Never fear." She gave Will a meaning look from beneath her eyebrows and added in a sort of bold, daring way, "There will be some one."
I don't know why Ruth loves to preach such wickedness. She doesn't mean half she says. I waited for the walls to fall. Will abhors married women who attempt to flirt with other men. Ruth waited too for the clap of thunder she thought must follow her startling implication. But when Will spoke there wasn't a trace of anger in his voice—just disgust—just plain unflattering disgust. "Come, Lucy," he said to me; "I've had about enough of this. Let's go upstairs to bed."
The Sewalls are the high-muck-a-mucks of the Hilton summer colony. They're New York people and their place, just outside Hilton, reminds me of the castles that give distinction to so many otherwise nondescript little towns in Europe—not in age, for I can remember when the Sewalls' place was rough cow-pasture land, but in its relation to the town and the surrounding country. It's Hilton's show-place. We always point it out to strangers when we take them on their first drive. The wrought-iron gates cost five thousand dollars; the distance around the house and adjoining buildings added together measures half a mile; the big entrance hall, we state (and we're proud of our knowledge too) is hung with old tapestries and furnished in carved English oak.
After Mrs. F. Rockridge Sewall's advent, there was established among the Hilton summer colonists a new law of society. You were either of the elect or of the rejected; you were either entertained by Mrs. F. Rockridge Sewall or you were an ignominious nobody. There existed no self-respecting middle position in Hilton after Mrs. Sewall arrived in mid-July with her retinue of some twenty-odd servants, her four or five automobiles, and half-dozen hunters. Mrs. Sewall was for some time a very disturbing factor in Edith's life. The lights of a ballroom, the sound of dance-music, however lovely they may be, are absolutely irritating to my sister-in-law, if seen and heard from the outside. It took two long discouraging seasons of scheming, manipulating, and rather bold attacking, before Edith gained the proper kind of entrance to the hallowed ground inside those five-thousand-dollar wrought-iron gates. It was really due to Ruth that she was admitted then. Young Breckenridge Sewall had chanced to see a stunning young creature in lavender and grey at a garden-party at Mrs. Leonard Jackson's, one afternoon late in August, during his mother's second season at Grassmere, the name of their place in Hilton. He had only to see Ruth once to beg for an introduction. That is the way it is with every man across whose field of vision my sister steps. I think that Ruth is the loveliest production that Hilton, or Hilton's environs, ever produced; and Breckenridge Sewall thought so too. Three weeks after that introduction at Mrs. Leonard Jackson's Ruth rushed in upon Edith one Friday noon and announced, "I'm invited to a house-party at the Sewalls'! One of the out-of-town guests has disappointed Mrs. Sewall at the last moment and Breck wants me to fill in!" Before the Sewalls went back to New York that fall, Ruth was the most distinguished young lady in all Hilton. She was pointed out everywhere she went as the girl to whom Breck Sewall was paying such marked attention; she burst into notoriety; and Edith's position was at last made secure. Trust Edith to squeeze into the limelight along with Ruth. I don't know how my sister-in-law manages such things but it was clear sailing for her after Breck's discovery.
That man rushed Ruth for two years and a half before there was any word from my sister about an engagement. During the summer he used to call on Ruth about six evenings a week, and as Edith made us all go upstairs (this was before I was married) on the nights that Breck came, by nine o'clock, it got to be a nuisance. At first I remember we were all a little flattered by the young millionaire's attention to our pretty Ruth and even I used to feel a thrill of pride at the thought of such a brilliant match in our quiet midst.
Breck didn't propose to Ruth till after I was married. She came in from a long motor run one Sunday in July, when Will and I happened to be in Hilton, and told us the news before she even took off her hat. I remember it very well for there followed one of our dreadful family discussions. By that time Will and I, and Alec too, had begun to feel a little doubt as to Breck's desirability. We had always heard rumours about his habits, but Edith prized Breck's attentions to Ruth so highly, that Alec had neglected a thorough investigation. He thought that Breck didn't intend to marry Ruth anyway, called it a summer affair and trusted that time would cure them both of their fancy. So when Will came out with a few telling facts detrimental to Breck Sewall's character, Edith was simply furious. She told me that I shouldn't come back meddling after I was married. Ruth loved Breck Sewall—she was sure of it; we might be the cause of wrecking the child's happiness for life if we interfered. Alec looked awfully distressed as we talked but he didn't rise up in indignation, stampede as he should have, and swear that no sister of his should ever marry a man with Breck Sewall's reputation, so long as he lived. Alec is awfully ineffectual when Edith is around.
I don't know how it all would have come out, if Mrs. Sewall hadn't interrupted matters. Suddenly, right in the midst of the thickest of our discussion, three or four days after Ruth's announcement, Mrs. Sewall decided to go abroad. She closed up her summer mansion, mid-season though it was, barred the windows, locked the gates, and sailed away to Europe, Breck and all. She didn't come back for two years, and even then she didn't come back to Hilton. The excitement about Breck and Ruth died down like fire, and about as suddenly. He didn't even write to Ruth after three or four months, and just before Ruth came down to visit me and announced her startling piece of news, I had read that Breckenridge Sewall was reported engaged to his cousin, Miss Gale somebody or other, a débutante of last season.